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Pipi’s Pasture: Passing the time in winter

Diane Prather
Pipi's Pasture

We kids kept busy during winter months with chores and school, but we had free time, too, and even though we didn’t have phones, TV, computers and other electronics, we found plenty of activities for enjoyment.

For one thing, there was plenty of snow, although we probably didn’t play out in it as much as one might think. At school, when weather permitted, we spent recess time building forts, making piles of snowballs and then having snowball fights.

I remember the top of the schoolhouse gas heater being covered with wet gloves.



I don’t remember building snowmen, but we did play with our sled. On weekends we often went with Dad to feed the cow herd in the pasture down from the house.

While Dad forked hay onto the sled, we slid down the little hill in the creek bottom or tied the sled to the feed wagon and rode on it back to the house. I have always loved cows, but I didn’t enjoy winter feeding because of the cold. I would have braved the cold to learn to ice skate, but the creek and ditch through the corral were full of rocks that stuck out through the ice.



Most of our free time was spent in the house where it was warm. We girls always received dolls for Christmas so we changed their clothes, fed and otherwise mothered them — play that lasted for hours.

We got games and books as gifts, too. When I was too old for dolls, I spent time writing and illustrating stories in tablets with celebrity photos on the covers. I still have some of these tablets and am surprised by my small handwriting.

We didn’t have TV, but we listened to a battery-powered radio, though we had to careful to not use up the battery. Cowboy shows, featuring Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gene Autry, were popular as was “Howdy Doody,” and there were other daytime kid shows as well.

Paper doll books were also popular, featuring baby dolls and celebrities. Each time we went to Craig, which wasn’t often in the winter, we each got to buy a new book so we ended up with boxes of paper dolls and clothes. The dolls were punched out of heavier paper, and then we cut out the clothes which were attached to the dolls by tabs.

We even designed, colored and cut out clothes for the dolls. Playing with paper dolls took up hours of play on a cold winter day.

We learned to do handwork from Mom, such as embroidery or crocheting, and we were allowed to sew together pieces of cloth using Mom’s pedal-sewing machine. At chore time, in the barn, while we waited for our steers to eat, we played around in the hay loft or “rode” the saddles that were hung from the barn ceiling by ropes.

Almost anything was turned into a fun activity.

Passing the time during the winter allowed us to use our imaginations, and as a result, to be creative.


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